Evening rush-hour traffic on Interstate Hwy. 694 came to a standstill Wednesday for a most peculiar reason: two women fighting in the middle of the highway.

The bizarre scene unfolded when Zion Johnson and Jerusha Monger, both of Sag Harbor, N.J., stopped the car they were in, got out, and pushed, shoved and hit each other in the center lane of westbound traffic on the border of Brooklyn Center and Fridley.

The altercation at 5:20 p.m. tied up traffic for about 20 minutes as frustrated drivers tried to move around the warring women until authorities arrived, broke up the fisticuffs and cleared the lanes.

State troopers are used to responding to "rolling domestic" confrontations along roadsides, said State Patrol Lt. Mark Peterson, but this was one of the strangest scenes the patrol has dealt with in a long time.

"The fact that they handled it in the middle of the road makes this one unique," he said. "Obviously, this is not the right way to handle this."

Johnson, 21, and Monger, 34, were arrested and booked into the Anoka County jail, he said. They were ticketed for disorderly conduct, posted $300 bail each and are scheduled to appear in court next month.

It's unclear what led to this scuffle, recorded by a Minnesota Department of Transportation traffic camera. The women, reached by phone Thursday afternoon, declined to comment.